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CNN Saturday Morning News
Marines Await New Orders Near Kandahar
Aired December 01, 2001 - 07:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: The last Taliban stronghold is in southern Afghanistan; that's around Kandahar. And a battalion of U.S. Marines is now dug in in that same area, awaiting new marching orders.
CNN's Walter Rodgers is in the journalist pool that is traveling with the Marines, and he joins us now by telephone -- Walter.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Martin.
U.S. Marine light armored vehicles are now fanning out across the deserts of southern Afghanistan, beginning their nightly patrols, looking for any last pockets of Taliban resistance in this area, or perhaps efforts by the Taliban to infiltrate and penetrate the perimeter of the air base they have now established here.
The Marines' actual contact with the Taliban has been very limited. The armored vehicles are supported by Cobra helicopters. Everyone will be wearing night vision goggles within the next hour when darkness falls here.
The problem for the Marines is determining which cars criss- crossing these desert roads are carrying civilians and which may be smuggling fuel or other supplies to the Taliban soldiers who are believed to still have some old Soviet-vintage tanks and other armor.
The worst enemy most of the Marines in this infantry battalion will encounter is cold, bitter December winter cold, to be suffered and endured in fighting holes on the perimeter of this air base.
At night, more and more supplies are flown in under the cover of darkness, making the airplanes safer from any Stinger antiaircraft missiles fired by the Taliban.
The Marines have other enemies in their fighting holes, however, isolation and boredom. One Marine sergeant told me one of his major tasks is ranging the perimeter from mortar nest to mortar nest just telling the dug-in Marines the latest basketball or football scores, or the latest gains made by the Northern Alliance around Kandahar.
Nearly every Marine with whom I spoke was yearning for a fight, a chance to prove themselves in combat. "Anything is better than sitting in these cold foxholes in the desert," one Marine corporal told me. Meanwhile, the supply buildup continues. More cargo flights are expected to land on this dry lake bed this evening. Every night they offload more and more supplies in great clouds of choking dust, this as other Marines and their tents and fighting holes await orders from someone that will enable them to test themselves against the Taliban -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: Walter, as much as I'd like to ask you about what they may be doing next, for operational secrecy I won't. So let me just ask you this: Had they been threatened in their stronghold out there at the airport in the time that they've been on the ground?
RODGERS: I asked that question of a Marine officer last night, and he told me they had not had contact or an attempt, shall we say, an attempt by the Taliban to penetrate this -- the perimeter of this air base. So the answer to that is no.
There was initial contact with the enemy on the 26th of November, less than a week ago, when the Marines first landed here. Remember, they were out on one of these reconnaissance patrols, and they were asked by some Navy pilots overhead to check out a convoy that was crossing the desert that the Navy pilots believed might be a legitimate target.
The Marine choppers went in, checked it out, because they get much closer to the ground. The Marine Cobra pilots confirmed that it was indeed a Taliban military convoy, whereupon the Marine F-14 fighter bombers came in and took out, I believe, all 15 of the military vehicles in that Taliban convoy.
But that was, as I say, November 26. That's been the major contact that the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit has had with the Taliban to this point -- Martin.
SAVIDGE: Walter, you mentioned that they're anxious to get moving on their next mission. I presume that means that morale is very high.
RODGERS: The morale is very high, and I literally went from fighting hole to fighting hole. Remember, the Marines don't call them foxholes. Foxholes are for the Army. The Marines call them fighting holes because that's what they do there. And I literally went from mortar nest to mortar nest chatting these fellows up.
And when you ask them their biggest complaint, the biggest complaint continued to be how awfully cold it gets in the Afghan desert at night. There are huge temperature swings. It's very hot during the day, T-shirt weather, and goose down weather at night, so they just put on layers and take off layers of clothing, at least according to the ones with whom I spoke.
Morale, however, is very, very high. And as I say, these young men would like to -- are spoiling for a fight, and they'd like to test themselves against the Taliban. But of course they're under orders to wait until further orders come down -- Martin. SAVIDGE: And we'll wait for that. Good to hear from you. Walter Rodgers, who is traveling with the U.S. Marines 15th Expeditionary Unit. And that is just outside Kandahar. Thank you.
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